Review of Reversal Of Fortune

Introduction

So what is it with me and Oscar winning films? I ask this question because I was surprised that I`d not seen Jeremy Irons` Oscar winning performance (Best Actor in a Leading Role) in Reversal of Fortune. But then I did a little digging, and it seems that I`ve only seen 5 of the last 15 performances voted as Best Actor in a Leading Role (now including Reversal of Fortune). It just seems to reinforce my theory about not trusting the Oscars....

Anyway, back to Reversal of Fortune. The film is based on a true story (those words usually fill me with horror), and was adapted by Nicholas Kazan from the book of the same name by Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer features in the story (played by Ron Silver). The basic outline of the story is up above.

The film was directed by Barbet Schroder and let`s hope that its better than the last of his films that I saw on DVD, Kiss of Death. Look out for a brief performance from Julie Hagerty who you`ll recognise from Airplane but very little else!

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer greets us here, and this is yet another MGM back catalogue title on DVD, which simply translates as another transfer which hovers around the "above average for its age" mark. It does look its age now and again, but it`s pretty clean, with only very minor traces of dirt and dust popping up from time to time, as well as a few noticable bits of grain. The colours are quite muted, but it seems this was intentional and they help to convey the period quite well (it was only 20 years ago that most of this actually happened).

Audio

A DD2.0 stereo soundtrack, which isn`t ultra exciting. Dialogue is clean and crisp and everything can be heard just fine. The soundtrack is definitely heavily biased towards the more classical sound, with Haydn and Wagner mingling with specially composed pieces of score.

Features

Just a trailer I`m afraid. A big "boo, hiss" to MGM for not making an effort to get the rights to the commentary track (director Barbet Schroeder and writer Nicholas Kazan) featured on the Warner region 1 version of the disc.

Conclusion

It`s films like this that make me wonder why I missed them first time around. An intriguing and interesting film, featuring a marvellous performance by Jeremy Irons (definitely deserving all of the awards that he received). Glenn Close works hard for the good of the film too, tying the whole thing together with her narration (an interesting device - having a character in a coma narrating), and then appearing in flashbacks. Ron Silver does come across as a mixture of Groucho Marx and Professor Robert Winston, but his role in the film is still good.

I`ve saved the best until last. The film never tells you if Claus von Bulow is guilty or innocent. We still don`t know this to this day and only 2 people on this planet do. Claus is happily living in London. Sunny is still in a coma after more than 20 years. Only they know what really happened, so it`s nice that Hollywood has left this one hanging, rather than trying to seek "closure" and coming down on one side or the other.

The disc itself is standard MGM back catalogue fare, reasonable picture, average sound and a lack of extras. It would have been really nice to see more extras here, maybe something retrospective, maybe more background on the case or maybe just the commentary track from the region 1 disc. At least the RRP is low. One to seek out if you`ve not seen it before.

Highly recommended.